


To Rust Unburnished

by Verity_Kindle



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Gen, He Just Doesn't Know It Yet, Irondad, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Tony Stark fails to avoid emotional entanglements, alternate POV
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-01
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-05-16 17:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14815314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verity_Kindle/pseuds/Verity_Kindle
Summary: Following the disaster that is the Sokovia Accords and all that follows, Tony Stark is a busy man. He’s got a million things to do, including viciously surpressing a whole lot of emotions, and he has no time to babysit someone else’s kid. Spider-Man can handle himself.Alternatively titled, How Tony Stark Decieves Himself Into Fatherhood.





	1. Denial

How dull it is to pause, to make an end  
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!

 

It’s been a bad day. 

Bad few days, actually. Maybe one of the worst collections of days Tony’s experienced lately. 

Any time you have to haul your bloodied self out of an abandoned facility in Siberia, dragging the remains of your suit and your friendships behind you, Tony thinks bitterly, you’re not doing great. 

It’s been a day or so since he watched them walk away. It hasn’t been an improvement. Turns out letting two enhanced super soldiers smash you around leads to some rather painful injuries. It had taken Tony far too long to establish enough backup power to call for help, and by the time a working suit arrived, he was shivering so hard he could barely operate the controls. Getting back to Germany was a blur, as was the entire bout of first aid he had to do to patch himself back up. 

But then he had slept. Best part of the whole shitfest the day had become. He let exhaustion and darkness claim him, and didn’t let himself think of what would come next. He doesn’t let himself feel any of the multitude of things that are waiting for him - grief and loss and crushing loneliness. There’s a wall between Tony and all of that, and he intends to keep it up for as long as possible. 

He startles awake in some wee hour of the morning, and there is no light. He pushes himself upright with a deep and terrible groan, fighting the pain and the urge to just collapse again and welcome the unconsciousness he so richly deserves - because he’s just remembered the kid. 

So, about that. 

He sits up, burying his throbbing head in his hands, and tries to work out just how much of an idiot his past self had been. Recruit a fourteen year old to help him fight half of the Avengers? Yeah, he’d done that. Dump said kid on Happy to secretly transport him illegally into Germany without proper paperwork while he’d gone to make preparations? Yep, he’d done that too. 

Get the kid killed, while his guardian had no idea where he was or what he was doing?

Almost. 

In a matter of days, everything has come crashing down around his ears. The Avengers are history. His friends are all either injured, on the run, or trying to kill him. The Accords are a smouldering ruin, Ross is going to want his head on a platter, Pepper is gone, and he almost got a child killed fighting a battle that didn’t matter, in the end. He remembers the sickening jolt that had gone through him when he saw the kid lying motionless on the hard pavement. 

Tony has no fucking business being around this kid. 

It doesn’t take too long to get hold of Happy and arrange the plane home. Tony resists the temptation to avoid the plane entirely and just fly home in the suit; he knows he’s not up to it, no matter how much he wants to spend some time in peaceful self-recrimination. 

The kid is fine. Tony checks him over surreptitiously behind a pair of dark glasses that he knows aren’t doing enough to cover his bruised face. Parker doesn’t look like the beating he took slowed him down a bit, and there’s not a sign of injury on him. Good. That’s a conversation Tony does not want to have with Aunt May. “Here’s your nephew back! Ignore the broken ribs and internal bleeding - corporate paintball got rough at the retreat.” 

“Hey, Mr. Stark!” The kid is way too enthusiastic for whatever horrible hour of the day this is. Aren’t teenagers supposed to need more sleep? Tony wants superpowers that make him immune to fatigue. “That was - that was amazing! I was-“

Tony has to hold up a hand, silently begging Parker to turn down the volume. He hasn’t allowed Friday to tell him just how physically messed up he is, but his head is certainly objecting to loud and cheerful noises. He takes the hint (though Tony can hear Happy muttering in the kid’s ear, and he’s going to allow it) and actually manages to contain all that energy as they board the plane and take off. 

He doesn’t mean to, but Tony sleeps all the way home. He’s vaguely aware of murmured conversations near him at some points, and once he cracks open an eyelid to see the kid staring at him, wide-eyed and worried. Tony manages to flick his fingers in acknowledgement, and Parker relaxes a little, but that’s all he can manage. Sleep pulls him back down again, and he’s too tired to fight. 

He’s still bleary when they deplane and get into the car, and it takes an embarrassingly long time of staring blankly at his phone screen before Tony wakes up enough to really be aware of things around him. He wonders sarcastically if all the articles FRIDAY has shoved onto his screen about concussions and head trauma have anything to do with that. By the time he’s fully awake, he becomes aware of the kid, who’s surely also struggling to come to grips with everything that happened. He’s probably going to need therapy to deal with that amount of trauma and violence, not to mention the whole attacking-a-national-hero thing. Tony can set that up, at least, as a partial apology. 

The kid is making a video. 

Tony blinks. Parker certainly doesn’t look like a trauma victim. He’s bright eyed and practically vibrating with energy, holding his phone at practiced angles with no evidence of discomfort. 

Maybe it’s just Tony that’s screwed up. 

Parker keeps filming everything the whole way home, much to Happy’s displeasure. And to Tony’s surprise, that’s the first thing that’s gotten through the numb wall surrounding him. He’s genuinely amused by how annoyed Happy is by this kid - a grumpy old dog being terrorized by an over enthusiastic puppy, his mind helpfully supplies, and Tony can’t help but smile a little. Parker doesn’t put the phone down until Tony tells him he can keep the suit. 

“I can keep the suit?” Parker whispers, looking so far beyond amazed that Tony’s going to have to think of some new descriptors. His eyes basically have tiny stars and hearts shining in them. He’s looking at Tony as though he hung the moon. 

And that- that is just not going to work. 

“Yes, we were just talking about it,” Tony says, letting his voice sharpen a little. “Do me a favor, though? Happy’s kind of your point guy on this. Don’t stress him out. Don’t do anything stupid - I’ve seen his cardiogram. All right?”

Happy is going to be bitching about this forever. He’s going to bug Tony about it day and night- and that’s ok, because what Tony needs more than peace and quiet is for Underoos not to be looking at him like that. Because Tony destroys everything he touches, and this kid doesn’t deserve to go down in flames like everything else in Tony’s life. 

He offers a bit of advice that, he will later realize, is not as clear and helpful as one might have hoped. Blame the concussion again. Still - kid is suited, babysat, warned, and put on hold. Tony’s done his best to give the kid enough tools to survive his own budding hero complex, and now he’ll do one better and step the hell out of his life. 

He reaches over to open the door, and Parker hugs him. 

Tony freezes - just for a second, a fraction of a second - and his heart thumps. 

Nobody touches him. Not since Pepper, really. A friendly pat on the shoulder here or there, and plenty of punching and attempted decapitations, but who’s counting? Tony Stark doesn’t get hugs. 

“It’s not a hug,” he says, trying not to be instantly grateful for how not-dead the kid is, despite him. “I’m just grabbing the door for you. We’re not there yet.” It’s gotta be toe-curlingly embarrassing for Parker, and Tony can only offer a casual “Bye” and a quick escape, and Happy is chuckling as they peel away from the entrance to his building. 

Tony’s a busy man - especially now. He’s got about three million things he needs to be working on, including fixing at least part of the mess that they’ve collectively made of their lives in the past week. He’s going to need Happy to handle the kid, because he just doesn’t have time. It’s better to have this part of the mess out of the way, honestly. The kid can go back to spider-ing around Queens; Tony will just make sure Happy knows to keep an eye on his YouTube appearances from time to time. At least this is one problem off his hands. Spider-Man can handle himself - he proved that much in Germany. 

Tony glances back, just once, as they leave - just in time to see a brilliant smile creep across the kid’s face as he hefts his luggage up more securely. 

(If you told him a hint of an answering smile tugged at his own face, he’d probably shoot you.)


	2. Anger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, kids. Hope you're all enjoying your weekends! Have some more developing-relationship shenanigans as poor Tony Stark tries to work out what's going on in his own head. (Good luck with that, I say.) Thank you so much for reading, if you are, and I really do hope you enjoy! All the best - Verity.

There have been very few periods in Tony’s life that he could describe as boring. This isn’t one of them. 

Rhodey’s therapy and the creation of artificial external leg braces that will allow him to walk again would be enough to consume a good portion of Tony’s time, if that were all that was on his plate. Tragically, he’s also trying to appease Ross and work on fixing the damn Accords, while keeping all his eyes out for any sign of Steve and company. Not because he wants to see any of them, naturally. It just seems like a good idea to try to keep tabs on them, especially because he’s the only power on Earth with the potential ability to do so. 

And then there’s Vision, who’s been acting fourteen different kinds of shady for the past few weeks. (Tony really, really doesn’t want to pry too much, but he worries.) He’s not worried, he’s just looking after all of his (remaining) assets. It’s been a month since Leipzig and Siberia, and nothing is back to normal. He supposes Vision has a right to be off, too. 

Stark Tower is a graveyard of all the dreams he once held, and Tony’s going to sell it as fast as he can. The Compound isn’t much better - still too big, too quiet, too empty - but it doesn’t have the weight of all the years of memories. If Pepper were still-

But she isn’t. That’s perfectly fine. She’s too sensible a woman to put up with Tony’s shit all the time, and he’s doing himself no favors, clinging to a past that everyone else has moved on from. Isn’t that what people always accused Cap of doing? The irony stings, more than a little. 

So between all of that and the fact that the government is now breathing down his neck as a consequence of him having signed the damn Accords, Tony’s got enough on his plate to keep him from wallowing. 

(He’s wallowing. Pepper would call him out on it, but she’s not there.)

He can’t look at his suits without flinching. He blinks, and there’s a brilliant metal shield embedded in his chest, like half of his nightmares come to life again. 

But he has to tinker. Gotta keep the old hands busy (or he’ll see how they shake), and the bots need the exercise, anyway. He messes with little ideas, mostly, mind occupied with a thousand other things, and he doesn’t pay much attention to what he’s doing. And then one day he looks down, and he’s completed six new systems for an improved Spider-Man suit. 

So that’s a thing. 

Happy’s been keeping an eye on the kid. Well, an ear. Well, half an ear. He listens to the voicemails young Parker leaves (grudgingly, and with a lot of complaining) and updates Tony when there’s anything particularly funny or dangerous or suspicious that they ought to look into. It’s a tiny glimpse into a much simpler world, and somewhere along the line, Tony’s come to look forward to hearing about Spider-Man’s Neighborhood. It’s very brightly colored, in his head, and full of colorful characters and heartwarming life-lessons. 

(He remembers what it’s like to be a teenager. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy, and he knows damn well that Parker’s life isn’t easier than his own. He just wishes it were, for the kid’s sake.)

Happy tells him that Parker’s quitting extracurricular activities at school, and Tony frowns. He’s kind of an expert on allowing your life to get out of control, allowing one aspect of it to take over everything normal and reasonable. He should have insisted the kid get therapy. But Parker sticks with decathlon (Happy’s got a theory that there’s a girl involved, from the way the kid very carefully never mentions there being a girl involved) and his grades stay remarkable (Tony doesn’t even have to try hard to hack the school website, ok? It’s just bad security) and Tony really, honestly does have a thousand other things to do. He’s letting go. He’s letting Happy handle it. 

May Parker calls him a month after Germany, and his heart almost stops. He’d only given her his number because she was worried about her young nephew going off to his internship retreat alone (hah) and wanted to be able to keep in touch. He really hadn’t expected her to use it. 

She must have found out about the whole mutant-superhero-vigilante thing. 

“It’s not my fault,” he says quickly. Better to head these things off at the pass. “I didn’t do it, I’m just trying to help.”

There’s a long pause, and then she sounds very confused when she speaks. “Is this Tony Stark?”

“Do I have any other options?” He probably shouldn’t sound that hopeful. Ah well, too late. 

“Mr. Stark, this is May Parker - Peter’s aunt? We spoke a few weeks ago when you stopped by to talk to Peter about your program.”

“Ah, May! Of course, how could I have forgotten such an unparalleled aunt? Your walnut date loaf has been on my mind ever since!” That’s not totally a lie; it just isn’t true in the way she probably would hope. 

“Mr. Stark, I know you’re a busy man, so I’m going to cut right to the chase. I’m not certain that your internship program is the best idea for Peter.”

“Oh?” Tony pulls up everything he has on the kid. It’s - it’s a lot. They might have a little problem with over-surveillance. “I’ve gotta tell you, he’s doing a great job. Very dedicated, very determined.”

“That’s the problem,” Aunt May says. Her voice is iron. “He’s throwing himself into your internship with everything he’s got, and it’s not really appropriate, Mr. Stark. He never spends time with his friends anymore, he’s quit half the things he loves at school, he’s always tired and on edge and quiet. You’re putting too much pressure on him. He’s only just turned fifteen, if you aren’t aware!”

He hadn’t been aware. Kid must have had a birthday at some point. 

(Fifteen. Tony has pairs of shoes that are older than this kid who’s flinging himself against every evil he can find. He swallows hard.)

At least Aunt May doesn’t seem to have a clue about what her nephew is really doing. That would be a very different, and probably a worse, conversation. 

“I hear you,” he says quickly. “I do. I can try to make it clear to him that he’s not expected to take on a full work-load. I’d rather he didn’t, matter of fact.” 

“Me too.” She’s not budging. “I agreed to this because I thought it would be good for him, for his future. I don’t care how prestigious it is, though - I’m not going to sit here and watch him work himself sick for a line on his resume.” 

“We’ll talk,” Tony promises airily. The kid has to settle into all of this and find his rhythm. He’ll work out how this double life works, eventually. They all have, in time. “Thanks for calling.” He hangs up. 

He’ll tell Happy to send the kid a message, warn him to cool it before his aunt really does put her foot down and stop his shenanigans. 

(He’ll forget, because he’s trying to sell the Tower and there’s a reported sighting of the Winter Soldier in Utah (Utah? Really?) and Pepper calls to see how Rhodey’s doing. They talk for four minutes, and Tony smiles for the first time in a fortnight.)

~~~~~

Happy keeps sharing details from Spider-Man’s Neighborhood, and sometimes Tony checks to see if there’s video to go along with it. Just to check that the kid is being honest. (He’s brutally, breathtakingly honest.) He watches YouTube videos of web-swinging that makes his arms hurt in sympathy, and looks through Parker’s eyes in footage taken from his suit’s built-in cameras. He needs work on so many things, Tony thinks critically; he wishes he could ask Natasha to teach the kid to fight more defensively. That’s not going to happen, though, and he’s a busy man. No time to waste on wishes. 

Sometimes at night, when he can’t sleep and he can’t tinker and his hands are shaking with the need for another drink that he really doesn’t want, FRIDAY shows him clips from the Baby Monitor. Gratitude on the face of a little boy who just got his kitten back; an exhausted young mother reaching out to give a hug to the person who’d just snatched her child back from oncoming traffic; an old man, grasping a gloved hand in thanks as he makes it to the ambulance in time. 

He’s doing well. Spider-Man is out there doing good in his tiny little corner of the world, and Tony’s played a very small role in that. It’s one of the few uncomplicated parts of his life right now, and that counts for a lot. It’s not his job to be proud of the kid, and it’s not his place. 

(He’s proud anyway.)

Someone buys the Tower, a little more than two months After Siberia. It’s hard to care exactly, except that Tony’s a media personality as well as a person and he’s required to make a big deal out of things like this. He flies to India to celebrate the deal with whatever august personage has bought the rubble of his old life. He’s at a party, actually enjoying the heat and sunshine, when FRIDAY speaks in his ear. 

“Boss, alert from the Spider-Man suit. Parachute has been deployed.”

Tony takes a few steps to the side, out of the main flow of traffic and conversation, and brings up a miniature holographic display from his watch. The numbers flare and flash. 

“Where is this?”

FRIDAY throws up a quick map reference, and Tony narrows his eyes. What the hell is the kid doing falling from heights in the middle of the suburbs? 

“Fire up a suit. Fastest one we’ve got. I want it there now, just in case.”

The suit is airborne before the kid hits the ground - which is a damn good thing, because a) he doesn’t hit ground, he hits water and b) he hits at a velocity which makes Tony’s knees waver a little. The parachute deployed, but it didn’t slow the kid’s descent. Something failed. Tony’s system failed, and Spider-Man had dropped to earth like the world’s weirdest stone. 

“FRIDAY?” 

“Vitals still coming through,” she says, in that incredibly reassuring tone he’d programmed her to use when he’s really, really stressed. “He’s alive, conscious, and mostly uninjured. The impact with water may have stunned him momentarily. The suit will arrive in under thirty seconds.”

Tony keeps watching his display, and his own heartrate picks up as the numbers climb. “What’s with the heartbeat? That doesn’t look normal.”

“I’m not certain that Mr. Parker can extricate himself from the water,” FRIDAY says calmly. “The parachute may be impeding his movement.”

Tony swears under his breath and watches, counting down the seconds. “Get the suit to him now,” he snaps. “I want him out of that water.”

(He knows what it feels like to drown.)

FRIDAY switches him over to remote suit controls the second it hits the water, and he’s got eyes and ears on the situation in a nanosecond. The kid is struggling under the water, making no progress toward the surface, and Tony feels like he might be sick. The suit scoops Parker up by the arms and sweeps them both back up and out, away from the water that might have been the kid’s grave. 

He goes handsfree and starts walking, unable to be still. His parachute failed, and then it wrapped itself around the kid and almost drowned him. Peter Parker just almost died, and it was at least half his fault. His hands are shaking.

“Oh, hey,” the kid says, sounding surprised and more than a little out of it. 

He fills Tony in on the short flight, and barely pouts at being deposited on a children’s climbing frame in a playground. (Tony needs to have a word with Happy about when it’s appropriate to brush the kid’s concerns off and when it’s not.) (He’s going to forget.) He can hear the kid’s teeth chattering as he huddles into himself atop the giant toy. He almost drowned. 

Tony’s sweating, and not because of the heat. He keeps walking, because he can’t stand still. His suit failed. He almost killed this kid again. Anxiety curls in the pit of his stomach, cold and heavy, and he needs to find a drink. “Thank God this place has Wi-Fi or you would be toast right now,” he says, keeping his voice level. “Thank Ganesh while you’re at it. Cheers.” He snags a drink - he doesn’t care what it is - and he keeps moving. Tony needs to get away from all of these people right now. “Look, forget the flying vulture guy, please.”

He’s shocked when Parker argues with him; he’d thought the mystique of being Tony Stark would keep him in awe longer. Kids these days. No respect for anything. He’s already composing a plan of action in his head while he attempts to reassure the kid and convince him to keep his head down. Friendly neighborhood Spider-Man - it’s got a nice ring. He’s five steps into the containment and disposal plan by the time he hangs up on the kid, driving away from the party before he can make more of a fool of himself in public. 

He doesn’t drive far - a few miles, with the anxious feeling curling through his stomach and up his throat as he goes until he’s half choking on it. He pulls off along the side of the road and parks, then lets himself breathe hard, releasing the anxiety into quickly-cohering anger. He almost got the kid killed - the kid who was supposed to be the one truly good and simple thing in his life. Peter Parker’s Neighborhood, with churros and rescued kittens and good-hearted kids who don’t drown themselves in front of people who are stuck half the world away. 

“You seem a bit worked up, Boss,” FRIDAY pipes up as Tony hits the steering wheel with the edge of a fist. “Do you need me to call anyone for you?”

There’s no-one to call. Everyone he still has at home is asleep by now, or they should be. For the briefest instant there had been a connection - Tony and Peter, sharing a moment - but the kid is hopefully headed home now to an aunt who’s worrying after him, and Tony’s sitting in a car by the side of the road in India, trying to forget what it feels like to drown.

Peter knows that feeling too, now. 

He hits the steering wheel again, and flinches when it hurts. The suit isn’t good enough, Peter isn’t half as mature and capable as he thinks, and, oh yeah, there are apparently hybrid alien weapons on the loose in New York City. His life is so far from boring. 

(Later, he’ll wonder why he was so angry. Much later, he’ll wonder whether Howard ever felt that worry and helplessness when he looked at Tony; if that had ever been a source of his father’s cold anger.)

“Start a new project in the Spider-Man folder,” Tony says, taking a deep breath. “Redesigned parachute.” 

He can’t mess this up again.


	3. Bargaining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hiya kids. So you remember I said something snarky in my endnote last time about accidentally becoming a parent?
> 
> Yeah, that happened to me. Again. Not the first time, but it always throws me off for a while. Thanks so much, fostering life. I’m back, though, and do apologize for the long wait! Leaving this story unfinished has been gnawing at my soul, so I’m back to finish! I do hope it’s still enjoyable to read!

Ok, so. 

So Tony has to admit, to himself if nobody else, that he’s not doing a great job dealing. With a lot of things. 

The team is gone, he’s moving away from the tower, the most visceral reminder of the life he’d planned, Rhodey still isn’t 100%. Pepper is still gone. (But she calls him now, a few times a week. Isn’t enough, but then he’s always been greedy.) (Natasha would tell him hope is for children; Tony never did do a great job of growing up.)

He’s kept the superheroing thing purposefully quiet. The world does not need any reminders right now of just how badly their supposed heros had messed up. For a change, the universe seems to be in agreement with him. No alien invasions, no would-be supreme overlords looking to take over the world. If it hadn’t been for enough politics to drown in, Tony might actually have been bored. 

He’s avoiding boredom by every means necessary. Boredom is not good for Tony Stark. Things usually get explosive. 

But he’s avoiding other things, too. Like all of the people in the world, except Rhodey and Happy, and Pepper when she calls. 

He’s definitely avoiding Peter Parker. 

And that’s not the kid’s fault. (Mostly.) Tony just doesn’t have the capacity to invest a lot of time and energy and emotion into something as - well, volatile - as a teenage kid. (That bit about things exploding? Tony tends to do that to relationships, too. Look at Pepper.)

So after the almost drowning incident (that he caused, his parachute that almost got a kid killed) he lets Happy keep track of the kid, and he purposefully steps back a bit. Happy is supposed to keep him updated if anything happens. Tony does a bit of light research, enough that he can verify what Peter had said about the weapons dealers, and tips off the authorities. 

Not Avengers level trouble, he’d told the kid - and it isn’t, it really isn’t. Still, alien tech in the hands of lowlifes isn’t good for anyone. (Having the Spiderling running around getting himself killed going after them is worse.) The FBI can handle it, Parker can pat himself on the back for a job well done, and Tony can leave New York City behind him without having to worry about this little hiccup. All good. He’s really good at what he does. 

He stops by to check in with Happy before heading up to the compound to make arrangements for the stuff that’ll be headed up by plane in a few weeks. 

“Don’t mess this up,” he warns, pointing at Happy. Best way to motivate the man is to keep him on his toes. The man isn’t happy unless he’s stressed to the max. (Tony can’t relate. At all.) “I can always demote you, you know.”

Happy snorts. “You’ve already got me on babysitting and housekeeping duties. How much lower can I go?”

“PR,” Tony threatens. “I’ll have you answering to the press for all my misdeeds.” Happy actually flinches at that, and Tony nods in satisfaction and turns to leave. He walks seven careful steps before turning around and asking casually, “By the way, how is the babysitting gig going? Is the little tyke getting his vegetables and beauty sleep?”

Happy flaps a hand at him dismissively. “He’s fine. Off to DC for some school thing this weekend. They watch kids like hawks on those things, so at least this weekend I can relax.” 

Tony nods and leaves without a word. School thing in DC. Sounds like fun. 

(It’s not his fault that his brain automatically calculates how long it’d take to get a suit down there, in an emergency. His brain is full of traps and snakes. It doesn’t mean anything.)

The trip to the compound is lonely, if he’s being brutally honest (he is. Someone’s got to do it, and he’s the only one around). He misses-

He misses a whole lot of people. 

He buries himself in blueprints for the majority of the trip, and walks into the compound without looking up from his display. His dad used to scold him for walking around with his nose in a book. It’s practically habit now, when he can manage it due to the demands on his time. 

It seems appropriate, somehow, that the way he encounters Pepper for the first time in months is by stepping on her foot and nearly knocking them both over. 

“Pepper?” Is all he can manage, blinking at her in confusion. She looks amazing, she’s the best thing he’s ever seen, she’s standing there with him and not storming off or shouting at him, and Tony’s throat wants to swell closed with a childish, useless hope. 

She shakes her head, smiling that crooked smile at him that he never thought he’d see again. “Look at you,” she says, gesturing at him. “I leave for five minutes and you go all to pieces.”

“It’s been five months,” says Tony’s stupid, stupid, traitorous mouth. 

“Uh-huh,” Pepper says. She’s still smiling. 

“And I think, you know,” Tony blunders on. He has no clue what he’s saying. “I think I’m doing pretty well, all things considered.”

“Did you know that jacket still has the price tags on it?” Tony spins to look at his shoulder, where she’s pointing, and Pepper laughs. It’s absolutely the best sound he’s ever heard. “Oh, Tony,” she says after a minute, amusement fading away into a fond sort of sadness. “I’m sorry you’ve been dealing with all of this on your own. That’s never what I meant.”

“No, no, it’s good! It’s fine,” he protests, waving both hands and dropping his tablet. “I completely understand. You’re not obligated-“

“It’s not about obligation,” she interrupts, stepping closer. “I left because I needed a break. I didn’t expect the whole world to go insane, or for you to wind up bearing the brunt of it.” There’s nothing to say to that, so he doesn’t. “And I’ve been worried, but I thought maybe you needed some space, you know? To process?”

Tony nods. It seems like the thing to do. He’s not certain what she’s saying, really, but nodding is good. Shows that he’s listening. 

“Anyway, then I got to thinking about what you tend to do when you’re left to your own devices, and I got more and more concerned, and then Happy said you were coming up here by yourself and I just thought-“

Pepper steps closer, eyes warm and bright, and Tony lets hope grow, just a little, in his heart. 

“Boss,” FRIDAY interrupts. Tony flinches. “The Spider-Man suit reports that the Training Wheels Protocol has been disabled.” 

“Not right now, FRIDAY,” Tony says dismissively. Pepper quirks an eyebrow.

“Spider-Man?”

“Just a - mentoring opportunity?” Tony offers. He already knows she’s not going to take it. “Not a big deal, just offering a bit of engineering prowess and, you know, encouragement to the up and coming youth, and anyway, you were saying?”

“Spider-Man,” she repeats, more damning now. “Youth. Tony, what are you doing?”

“I don’t know!” He protests, flinging his arms wide. “Pepper, when do I ever know what I’m doing? I’m doing my best to keep it all going on my own, but I’m never more than two steps away from disaster, you know that!” Tony runs a hand through his hair, and tries to remember whether he’s brushed it today, but it hardly matters. “I sort of accidentally recruited this - this kid, to help with the whole Cap situation. I didn’t know he was so young, honestly, or I wouldn’t have done it, but once I was there I just had to keep going-”

“You always do,” Pepper says with a sigh. “Ok, so? You’re mentoring Spider-Man, is that it?”

And that makes it sound so simple, so cut and dried, and Tony shrugs helplessly. “I don’t really know, Pep,” he says. “Mostly I’m just trying to keep from screwing him up. I made him a suit and Happy’s keeping an eye, and I’m trying to figure out…” his voice trails away, and he sighs, suddenly so, so tired. “I don’t know.”

Pepper smiles at him, so warm and fond that he can feel his heart growing three sizes, like the billionaire genius playboy Grinch he is. “I guess I really can’t ever leave you unsupervised,” she says. “Next thing I know I’m gonna hear you’ve adopted this kid and then what am I supposed to do? They don’t make a card for “Congratulations on your adoption of a young superhero,” you know.”

Hope is a brutal, awful thing. It clings in Tony’s throat and makes it hard to breathe. “Are you-” he breathes. “Would you-”

Pepper shrugs and looks around her. “I am CEO, you know. I was never going to stay away forever, Tony, you know that.”

If Tony completely forgets any mention of young Parker and his malfunctioning suit after that, he doesn’t think anyone can blame him. Well, Happy will, but he doesn’t count. 

~~~~~~~~

It’s not until the next day that he even starts to remember, and then it’s on him all at once - and of course it happens just as he’s been singing Peter’s praises to Pepper - bragging on his smarts and courage and dedication to duty, as if he has any hand in any of that, any claim to the kid at all. Pepper is giving him that Knowing Eyebrow that always makes him uneasy because what does she know about him that he hasn’t figured out yet?

“Boss,” FRIDAY says in his ear. Tony gives his head a sharp shake, trying to brush her off. “Boss, you need to see this.”

He apparently has a problem with the design of some of his AIs, because she overrides his systems without even waiting for his consent and sends a newsfeed hovering in the air in front of him. Rude. It takes him a moment to orient himself, and Pepper is growing at it in confusion. 

“Isn’t that the Washington Monument? Why are we looking at-”

“Oh shit,” Tony says blankly, because he suddenly knows what he’s looking at. There at the top of the national symbol is a tiny little red and blue form, swinging on an impossibly fragile line above a fatal drop. 

Peter Parker is, for some reason, attacking the Washington Monument. 

“Send a suit, now!” Tony shouts, not bothering with subtlety or forethought. “Send as many as I have available, and find out what’s happening right now!”

“Karen says that Peter accidentally activated an alien power source that exploded inside the elevator, endangering all those inside. She’s talking him through his best chance approach to try to reach them in time, but the odds aren’t great, Boss.” FRIDAY doesn’t even have the decency to sound worried. 

“Who the hell is Karen?” Pepper isn’t the jealous type, but she does look perplexed. 

“No clue,” Tony says, watching breathlessly as Peter manages to smash through a tiny window without being murdered by government helicopters, and sagging back in his seat in slight relief. 

“Karen is the name Peter has given to the AI you programmed for his suit,” FRIDAY says implacably. “She seems fond of him, Boss. Karen reports that Peter has reached the elevator and is attempting to stabilize it.”

Pepper’s got a hand on his arm, which Tony appreciates, because he can’t see what’s going on inside that building. Peter has somehow done a number on the suit and Tony can’t access any of the readings or visuals that he’d usually be able to pull up, and he’s trying not to hyperventilate because this kid has almost died an unconscionable number of times recently and -

“I really don’t think Karen should be offering dating advice,” FRIDAY says severely. Tony blinks, and Pepper snorts. 

“Is it secure, then?”

“All passengers have exited the elevator safely,” FRIDAY reports, but Tony thinks she’s holding back. 

“And?”

“No worries, Boss. He’ll heal up before he even gets back to New York.”

Tony lets out a rush of breath, half relieved and half horrified, and shakes his head. 

“He is so grounded when he gets back,” he mutters to himself. “Grounded. I’m locking the suit in the deepest darkest lab I can find. FRIDAY, I want everything you or - or Karen have on this explosive, and answers as to why a highschooler is playing with alien explosives right now.”

“Grounded,” Pepper says with a smirk. “Yeah, I can tell how much you’re letting Happy handle this situation.”

“Pepper, he could have blown himself up!” Tony protests, already scrolling through files quicker than most people could have begun to process. He highlights the most important and throws it up, taking a deep breath. “Alien weapons, power cores - I told him to stay away from this! The FBI is going to handle this one!”

“And you’re so good at staying out of things that people tell you not to look into?” Pepper knows him, that’s the whole problem. He shakes his head wordlessly, because what can he even say to that?

Pepper gives him space while he pieces together the whole story, and when it all comes clear, Tony honestly doesn’t know whether to be angry with the kid or fly down and shake his hand. (He does eventually remember to cancel all the suits that are no longer needed. Peter handled that situation, without Tony’s help, and he’s not quite sure what that means.)

“Ok,” Pepper says when he tries to express some of this, “I think it’s time for you to fill me in on everything.”

And to have someone to talk to - about all of it, not just Peter and his deadly risk-taking - is a relief beyond what Tony could have imagined. 

~~~~~

It takes him until almost lunchtime the next day to decide how to approach things with Peter. (Peter. He’s Peter, now, in Tony’s head, and that’s...not a good sign, in terms of mental and emotional detachment.) He ought to scold him for messing with alien weapons, ought to take the suit away for blowing up a really really old national monument and, more importantly, messing with the suit. He still can’t track the kid. That’s gonna have to be fixed. 

He wants to scold, wants to shout the kid down until he gets what risks he’s taking and just how badly everything could have gone. 

Because that’s what Howard Stark would have done. 

Tony realizes it, with a sick twist to his stomach. He can hear the phrases piling up in his head, expressing disappointment and frustration and anger with a kid who just almost got himself killed saving the lives of a whole bunch of people who would never even thank him for it. 

He’s not the kid’s dad, not even a little bit - but he’s responsible for him, in a way, and always will be. Because he gave the kid a suit and pointed him at bigger threats, and now Peter thinks he’s invulnerable and is definitely going to die, and that’s going to be Tony’s fault. 

“Tell your brain to shut up,” Pepper says, coming up behind him with a gentle hand on one shoulder. “Whatever it’s saying, it’s wrong.”

Maybe there’s a way to do this. Maybe it’s time for him to step up a little more - be more supportive, bring the kid in more. (Fix the damn suit and warn him never to mess with it again.) (By all the seven hells, he has to fix the damn parachute before Peter gets himself killed again.) (Note to FRIDAY: start a running list of needed repairs and improvements to the Spider-Suit.) Maybe he can be more than just tech provider and dispenser of concussed advice. He makes a bargain with himself. He’s not going to get too involved, because there’s no damn way Peter needs Tony’s presence in his life, but Tony needs to be there. He needs to know that he’s doing everything he can to keep Peter alive and moving forward. 

What time do they eat lunch in high school these days? Tony barely remembers that tiny segment of his own life. He decides to go ahead and call, whether Peter answers or not. He’s not going to have the courage to say what he wants to say forever. 

Turns out, hearing a strangled “-no, no! Don’t answer!” from the other end of the line isn’t the best way to jump into a conversation. Tony is immediately suspicious, but he plows forward. 

“Mr. Parker.” (That’s good - sounds very formal and proper.) “Got a sec?” (Perfect. Good blend of formal and friendly. He’s got this balancing act under control.)

“I’m actually at school,” Peter says, and Tony knows in his gut that the kid is lying through his teeth. Not his business, though, if the kid plays hooky once in a while. 

“Nice work in DC,” Tony says, carrying on with aplomb. Peter is spluttering something, but he steamrollers over him, because he’s not good at this sort of thing and he needs to get up a head of steam before emotional constipation kicks in and derails the whole thing. “My dad-“ (oh god why is he doing this?) “never really gave me a lot of support, and I’m trying to break the cycle of shame.”

“I’m in the middle of something,” Peter says, sounding more desperate than Tony has ever heard him, and does he really want to know what he’s interrupting? 

Nope. 

“Don’t cut me off when I’m complimenting you,” Tony says firmly. Damn, he’s good at this after all. He’s got this. “Anyway, great things are about to-“

He’s cut off by the most ungodly horror of a growling belch, and he can’t place it even though he knows he should know that sound, somehow. “What is that?”

“I’m at band practice,” Peter lies, because he is a lying little liar. 

Tony employs some of Pepper’s legendary sarcastic tones. “That’s odd. Happy told me you quit band six weeks ago. What’s up?” Peter must be in some kind of trouble. 

“I gotta go,” the infuriating kid says suddenly. “End call.”

And Tony is left gaping at his phone, which stares innocently back at him. 

The kid hung up on him. 

The kid, who is clearly not in school; who had his phone answered for him by his suit; who has got to be exactly wherever Tony least wants him to be, because that is the nature of Tony’s entire fucking existence. He’s already calling a suit to him remotely as he heads for the door, because he knows damn well where Peter Parker will be. 

He gets to the ferry just in time, and his remote jets are already helping to prop the sundered ship up as he arrives. No grace time left - the kid looked like he was about to be ripped apart in his desperate attempt to hold the ferry together by sheer force of will and muscle. (He has to admire that. Even through the fog of anger and terror that clouds his vision, Tony can’t help but be shocked and amazed at the heart of this kid.) (But to be fair, he did break the ship before he tried to fix it, and that was points off for lack of style.)

“Hi, Spider-Man,” he says, cold and cutting as the kid startles. “Band practice, was it?” Because Peter had lied to him, and that was the most unforgivable part of all this. 

He flies around cleaning up Spider-Man’s mess, barely aware of the kid swinging along behind him, begging for a chance to help, to make it right. He can’t even think straight. He wants to get this all cleaned up and get away, find enough space to clear his head and think before he’s got to deal with the kid. But because all of space and time hate Tony Stark, he doesn’t get that. 

There’s no loss of life, somehow. But there almost was. Tony keeps seeing it in his head as he makes for a private enough place to have it out with the kid: the ferry sinking, the kid pulled down with it to his death. Because if Tony knows anything, it’s that Peter Parker would have gone down with that ship, trying to save everyone aboard, even when it was past all hope. 

He’s a god damned kid, Tony reminds himself harshly. A child, who makes bad decisions because his brain is not yet capable of making fully considered choices. And Tony Stark had outfitted him like a weapon and set him loose. 

There should be a hell of a lot of blood on his hands today. The fact that there isn’t is nothing but luck. What if he hadn’t called Peter? 

He’s in a coldly controlled rage by the time they stop to chat, with a welling pit of barely-avoided loss underneath it, and he doesn’t have the emotional reserves to do this, he doesn’t. He’s not cut out for this. 

“Previously on Peter Screws the Pooch,” he bites out, already hating the words coming out of his mouth (Howard’s words, Howard’s tones, and he can’t stop them) “I tell you to stay away from this. Instead, you hacked a multi-million dollar suit so you could sneak around behind my back doing the one thing I told you not to do.” He feels so parental right at this moment that he wants to be sick. 

“Is everyone ok?” The kid is barely keeping it together, barely, and suddenly Tony doesn’t want him to. He wants Peter to get it, to understand how very near a thing it was. He’s not merciful. 

“And if you died?” He finds himself saying, far more honest than he ever, ever wants to be. “I feel like that’s on me. I don’t need that on my conscience.”

He takes the suit. He’d never, never imagined he’d have to do that - not to Peter, who was so serious, so conscientious about his duty. He takes the suit and sends the kid home, downcast, in an absolute joke of an outfit that Tony doesn’t find the tiniest bit amusing. 

Why had he ever wanted to be anything more to this kid than a distant mentor? The anger is gone, now, and Tony can’t even look at the suit in his hands. 

Pepper sees it in his face when he gets back. 

“Tony? Oh my god, what’s wrong?”

“I sounded just like my dad,” he tells her. It’s numb and horrified, just the way he feels. He puts the suit down and doesn’t look at it. He should have stuck to the distance thing; or better yet, never have gotten involved. 

This was a bargain he never should have made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Promise it won’t be such a long wait next time! And that Tony will eventually get through his funk. Parenting, especially suddenly when you never meant to, is just so many emotions all the time, you guys. The poor man. It’s ok - he’ll work it out in the end! All the love - Verity.


	4. Depression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Three updates in three days? Yeah, I’m definitely back on my bullshit again. Enjoy it while it lasts, people! I’m having such fun writing again, and I’ll keep it going as long as I can. Thank you, so very much, for reading and offering encouragement!

Tony has coping mechanisms. They are shitty, shitty coping mechanisms, but he has them. 

He hides. Retreats to his lab, shuts down all contact with the outside world, and buried himself in work. It’s what he’s always done in the face of things he can’t handle. Peter Parker has suddenly become a thing he can’t handle. 

There’s been a systems breach, somehow. He didn’t see it coming. The kid crept in through a crack in his armor and corrupted his defense mechanisms. FRIDAY should have seen it coming. Tony should have seen it coming. 

He stares sightlessly at the remnants of the suit he’d made so off-handedly for a nameless wannabe superhero, with little more than a thought of potentially bribing whoever he was into helping Tony deal with his problems. He should have walked away when he’d met the kid - when he’d seen all that enthusiasm and genuine goodness overflowing in a kid who had no business mixing with Tony’s kinds of problems. 

He goes to work without conscious thought, ignoring even Pepper’s attempts to contact him. He’d tried to do a good thing - one good thing, corrupted though it was by his own ulterior motives - and he’d failed miserably. His suit hadn’t kept Peter safe. It had allowed him to place himself in wild amounts of danger. When it gets right down to the heart of him, all Tony wants is to protect people - as many as possible, as much as possible. 

He couldn’t even keep one kid safe, not with millions of dollars worth of tech and his own (far too limited) mentorship and supervision. How can he think bigger? The suit stares at him with huge, empty eyes, accusing. He can’t think about how miserable Peter had looked as he sent him away. 

“I’m nothing without that suit,” the kid had said - and boy, does he not get it. Of the two of them, it’s Tony who’s nothing without his tech. Peter still has all his superpowers, all his inherent drive and determination. The suit is the absolute least part of Spider-Man. 

Tony slams down the tool he’s been using, nearly crushing his own fingers in his frustration. He’s been lying to himself long enough. 

He likes the kid, and yeah, he feels responsible for him. Yeah, there was a reason his father’s words were haunting his brain as he tried to deal with this brilliant, impulsive, idiot kid who seemed determined to get himself killed. Yeah, there had been a more than half baked plan in the back of his head - spending more time with the kid, mentoring and encouraging him, building on the pretty awesome foundation they’d been slowly constructing. Yeah, he’d wanted this kid to be part of his life. 

“FRIDAY, make a note of the fact that I’m an idiot,” he growls. 

“Just worked that out now, have you, Boss?” she asks sympathetically. 

“You’re not helpful,” he snaps. “You’re the opposite of helpful. In fact, you know, I think I ought to reprogram you to-”

He trails off. There’s no fun in making empty threats. 

He loses himself in his work for enough time that he’s completely unsure how long it’s been. Could be hours, could be days. 

It’s not just the kid, of course. He’s just the focal point of Tony’s idiocy. He’s a perfect case study of how Tony Stark screws up anything halfway good he finds. (God. You didn’t even need to look this far. Look at the smoking wreckage that is the Avengers Initiative. Fury was right not to want him.) He can’t have good things in his life. Tony should just hide out down here until Pepper wises up and leaves for good. 

He sleeps a bit, here and there, and eats whatever he’s got squirreled away in various corners of the lab. He actively avoids thinking. 

He about dies of a heart attack when Pepper storms in, banging on the glass wall hard enough to rattle the fastenings. 

“Tony, you let me in right now!” Her shout barely carries through the thick glass, but there’s such ferocity in it that Tony sits up, blinking his way out of his stupor. “Happy’s been trying to get hold of you for hours!”

“What’s happened?” Tony asks stupidly, stumbling to his feet as he releases all the locks and Pepper stomps in, looking around in faint disgust. 

“The plane.” He blinks at her, and she flaps her hands in frustration. “Ugh, are you telling me you haven’t heard any of our messages? Tony!”

“What plane?” He’s still in a completely different frame of mind, and is struggling to put the pieces together. It’s possible he locked himself away for too long, this time. 

“Your plane! Moving Day?” She glares at him in frustration, and Tony nods. 

“Right, that’s coming up. Why can’t Happy handle that? I thought he was handling that.”

Pepper slows down enough to look at him properly. “Are you ok? Tony, today was Moving Day.”

He blinks through that one. “I can admit the possibility that it might have been,” he says stiffly. 

She might actually murder him. “Well, it was. Past tense. And your plane full of incredibly classified and dangerous technology was hijacked right out from under Happy’s nose.”

Well, now Tony is paying attention. He scrambles for the nearest display, already trying to call up information. “What? Who? When?”

She waves a hand at him. “Two hours ago, calm down. They didn’t get away with anything. The plane crashed -Coney Island. Happy says he needs you there right away.”

Tony obediently calls up a suit, but he hesitates. “Who did it? How were they smart enough to hijack my plane but also dumb enough to crash it?”

“Some guy calling himself the Vulture,” Pepper says, making a face that expresses exactly how little she thinks of the whole state of affairs. “Apparently he had a little help in the crashing part, at least. Happy tells me he found the guy wrapped up like a Christmas present.”

“And does Happy have any clue how fired he is?” Tony snaps. He leans forward to kiss Pepper on the cheek before taking off. He’s too tired for this, but the things on that plane - if anything was missing, had been overlooked - well, the public opinion of Tony Stark somehow always had still further it could fall. 

He makes good time, mostly because his mind is racing. Who the hell calls themselves “the Vulture” and goes around kidnapping his planes? And who crashed the damn thing?

By the time he arrives to find widely scattered metal pieces of what had once been an state-of-the-art plane, all gently smoldering in the sand, Tony has a long, long list of questions for Happy Hogan. Every one of them goes out of his head when, as he flies into visual range, FRIDAY highlights something in his viewer. 

“Boss,” she says softly. “Take a look.”

There, perched on top of a roller coaster, is the exhausted-looking figure of a kid who might, interpreted in a very charitable light, look a little like someone doing a bad impersonation of Spider-Man. 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Tony says flatly.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! Thanks for reading this, you guys! I’m utterly stunned at the reception my other story in this fandom has received, and I couldn’t stop myself from diving back in. This story is meant to be an examination of how the events of Spider-Man:Homecoming might look from Tony’s perspective. 
> 
> Honestly, though, I mostly just want to wallow in all my feelings about how Tony accidentally becomes a parent without noticing it’s happening to him. (This can happen way more easily than you think, you guys. Beware.) I really hope you enjoy! Love, Verity.


End file.
